You only need to look at our own history, especially in Northern Ireland, never mind the current conflicts that are engulfing not only the Middle East but parts of Russia, Africa and the Philippines, to agree.

Nor is it just Muslim against Christian but Sunni versus Shia and sect against sub sect.

Believing in the same god is no longer enough, it has to be some militant zealot’s interpretation of that god.

Sectarianism is rife.

You don’t attempt to convert someone to your religious viewpoint by reasoned debate, far less agree to differ. No, you bomb and terrorise them into it.

Or you shoot a teenager in the head and sentence a sick old man, Mohammed Asghar, in Pakistan to death for reciting a verse from the Koran and allegedly, “posing as a Muslim”.

We’re constantly told by its adherents that religion is a force for good.

Well, maybe.

I do not belittle the amazing work done by religious charities at home and abroad but should the Martians land on Earth tomorrow and look around, they’d be hard put to think religion has turned our planet into a place of peace and brotherly love.

Now, obviously, the vast majority of those who support and practise their faith wish harm to no-one.

But as Tony Blair also says, the fanatics who scream hate loudest have hijacked religion and drowned out the moderates.

Some might add that Blair’s own bull-headed determination to take us into dubious wars in Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t exactly help.

They gave the extremists a platform and a cause.

Blair maintains the only way out of this deadly cul-de-sac is education, education and yet more education and he may be right.

Although, whether that education can best be done in schools, which call themselves Catholic or Muslim or Jewish, or whatever, is surely debatable, not least in the UK.

By their very nature they separate children off from each other.

Meanwhile, this week there was a joint submission to Holyrood from the Humanist Society Scotland and the Church of Scotland in support of making our schools’ religious observance “more inclusive and clearly not gatherings where one faith or belief system is promoted over another”.

Makes a load of sense to me.

We need to be tolerant of ALL faiths.

There is a cartoon doing the rounds in which a stick figure of Jesus is saying “Hi,” to a stick figure of Muhammad replying, “How ya doing?”

Not a bad start.

Or as the late, great Dave Allen used to say, “May your god go with you.”